Chapter Text
The sky had a lot to recommend it. It was spacious, ever changing, and simultaneously expressed vast possibilities that would never touch any given individual and realities that created present and consistent consequences.
It was like rain and the stars.
One could never hope to touch the stars but the rain will come down to meet your fingertips.
He liked to look up into the sky but it was really debatable as to whether he liked it or not. Sometimes the vast expanse of everything felt ominous and others it felt like untold possibilities along with infinite potential. Sometimes the rain was a refreshing touch of freedom and sometimes a storm could steal a life.
It was raining the day his mother died.
Roksu Henituse had only been four years old when his mother was involved in a tragic carriage accident and lost her life to her injuries.
It felt odd to Roksu that he had more memories of the rain that day than he did of his mother.
He missed her, of course he did, but at such a young age it was difficult to really grasp loss.
The rain had been like the tears that streaked down his older brother's face. Seemingly endless and shattering to the ground below.
Roksu noticed that his brother started looking down a lot after their mother passed away. Whether it was because he couldn’t bear to look up at the sky that had taken part in her death or a kinship with the ground below, Roksu couldn’t say.
He found his own gaze always drifted up towards the clouds.
Fluffy white shapeless masses that ever changed. If he looked for long enough, maybe he’d spot oncoming trouble before it came. Or maybe he’d just stare into the uncaring abyss and find nothing.
In all truth, Roksu wasn’t the sort of person to think so poetically. In actuality, he was a highly practical person with sensible values and a rather lackluster imagination. He liked money and he liked slacking off. He dreamed of a day where he’d have an excess in both so he could spend his days being useless trash.
It was a humble and rather achievable dream for the second son of a wealthy nobleman. It became even more achievable when he became the third son after his father remarried.
His elder step brother was a bright and sweet person who was well suited to become lord of the territory and it offered Roksu the opportunity to really lay back and relax without a care in the world.
Theoretically, at least.
Roksu had a personality flaw. It was so prevalent that it surely had to be engraved onto his very soul and it did nothing but cause him trouble. Truly, no matter how many lives Roksu might live, he would always carry this flaw with him despite all of his most earnest efforts.
He cared far too much.
Even with every opportunity laid down in front of him to walk the rose petal path of ease and comfort, Roksu could never stop himself from getting involved in the troubles of those around him. Especially when those troubles involved people that he loved, but he’d also been known to help out those who he barely knew as well.
In many ways, Roksu was similar to the sky. Distant and close all at once.
Perhaps that was why he felt a strange kinship with the clouds and spent so many of his free hours laying back on the soft grass and watching their everlasting dance through the sky.
Regardless of his motivations or rationality, Roksu had been wasting his time once more by watching the clouds when his fate changed.
Birds were a regular part of the ever changing sky. Roksu never paid them all that much attention other than to acknowledge their existence. Maybe take note of the different species that danced across the sky.
This particular bird caught his attention first because he was sure the breed wasn’t local to the territory. It was only a momentary interest though that would have quickly shifted to an interesting cloud if not for the far more shocking sight.
Roksu had never actually seen a bird drop out of the sky.
He was on his feet before he fully registered what he was seeing.
Roksu was not the athletic sort. He’d done the bare minimum in learning self defense that was demanded of him by his family but aside from that, he avoided physical exertion whenever possible. His dream was to become a lazy slacker after all.
So it would have surprised anyone who knew him well to see Roksu sprint so quickly through the tall grass. Each step using the ground as a mere launching point for the next one, rushing without a single regard for the bramble that scratched his cheeks and arms, and stumbling past rocks without stopping to fall.
His eyes were locked on the falling black shape framed by a too blue sky.
A little faster.
If he was just a little faster, he would make it.
Roksu poured more strength into his legs and nearly ran over a ledge when the ground dipped, stopping just in time as he caught the bird. Of course, the force of his sprint sent him falling forward regardless and he clutched the bird protectively against his chest as he tumbled to the bottom.
It was really a terrible personality flaw that he was afflicted with.
Roksu winced and opened his eyes when he finally reached the bottom. The eternal sky above didn’t offer any reprieve from his circumstances but he was relieved to feel the bird squirming in his arms, letting out a troubled peep as he caught his breath.
The bird would be okay. Probably.
He sighed.
He’d need to find out why the bird had fallen to begin with and then find an appropriate treatment. This was no time to lie down and wait for fate to take its course.
Roksu soothed the feathers of the bird gently. He didn’t say soothing words like it’s okay or I’ve got you because Roksu wasn’t a naturally dishonest person.
It was rare that anything was actually okay and being in the hold of a stranger was hardly any comfort to an injured bird.
When he found his strength again, Roksu looked down to the bird in his arms.
It was a hawk. A curiously calm black hawk. His deep red eyes met with Roksu’s brown eyes and he had the strangest sense of deja vu.
He was sure he’d never even seen a bird like this before, at least not in person, but there was the strangest sense that he knew this bird. Insane as it was, Roksu almost thought that he spotted that same familiarity in the hawk’s.
“Want to come home with me?” Roksu asked, knowing it was a foolishly useless question to ask a bird.
The hawk let out a peep of agreement and Roksu felt a small smile tug at his lips.
Well, that was a promising start.
Of all the things Roksu had seen in his turbulent relationship with the sky, he never would have imagined how such a simple and small thing would change his life.